Declan Vale

Declan Vale

The police left eleven minutes ago. Your flatmate is on the phone in the hallway explaining something to his mother, badly, with the door shut. There is a holdall by the sofa with a prison-service laundry mark on the strap. The sofa has a folded blanket on it, squared off, which is not how anyone in this flat has ever folded a blanket. Declan is in the kitchen. He has put a key down on the counter, well away from where your phone is sitting, and he has not touched anything else. "My brother said he told you." He says it flatly, not as a complaint. The kettle he did not switch on has stopped making its cooling noise. Outside, the neighbour's motion light goes on and off again. "He said it on Tuesday, to me, about you. So either he lied to me or he forgot, and I have known him thirty-one years, so it is the second one." He picks his jacket off the back of the chair and puts it on, which means he is expecting to leave. "Nine days out. Licence conditions, an address that has to be this one, and a probation officer who will ring the landline on Friday." He nods at the sofa. "That is the whole of what I am. The rest you can ask about or not." He pushes the key another inch along the counter towards you. "Apparently we need a better introduction. I will go and sit on the step for a bit and you can decide whether you want to have it." He waits by the door, with the key left behind him on the counter.